Текст книги "Inca Gold"

Автор книги: Clive Cussler

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    "I'm sorry about your brother," Sarason said without emotion.

    "I can't believe he's gone," muttered Chaco, strangely unmoved. "His death doesn't seem possible. The elimination of the archaeologists should have been a simple affair."

    "To say your people bungled the job is an understatement," said Sarason. "I warned you those two divers from NUMA were dangerous."

    "My brother did not expect organized resistance by an army."

    "An army of one man," Sarason said acidly. "I observed the action from a tomb. A lone sniper atop the temple killed the officers and held off two squads of your intrepid mercenaries, while his companion overpowered the pilots and commandeered their helicopter. Your brother paid dearly for his overconfidence and stupidity."

    "How could a pair of divers and a juvenile group of archaeologists scourge a highly trained security force?" Chaco asked in bewilderment.

    "If we knew the answer to that question, we might learn how they knocked the pursuing helicopter out of the air."

    Chaco stared at him. "They can still be stopped."

    "Forget it. I'm not about to compound the disaster by destroying a U.S. government ship and all on board. The damage is already done. According to my sources in Lima, full exposure, including Miller's murder, was communicated to President Fujimori's office by Dr. Kelsey soon after she boarded the ship. By this evening, the story will be broadcast all over the country. The Chachapoyan end of our operation is a washout."

    "We can still bring the artifacts out of the valley." The recent demise of Chaco's brother had not fully pushed aside his greed.

    Sarason nodded. "I'm ahead of you. A team is on its way to remove whatever pieces survived the rocket attack launched by those idiots under your brother's command. It's a miracle we still have something to show for our efforts."

    "I believe there is a good possibility a clue to the Drake quipu may still be found in the City of the Dead."

    "The Drake quipu." Sarason repeated the words with a faraway look in his eyes. Then he shrugged. "Our organization is already working on another angle for the treasure."

    "What of Amaru? Is he still alive?"

    "Unfortunately, yes. He'll live the rest of his days as a eunuch."

    "Too bad. He was a loyal follower."

    Sarason sneered. "Loyal to whoever paid him best. Tupac Amaru is a sociopathic killer of the highest order. When I ordered him to abduct Miller and hold him prisoner until we concluded the operation, he put a bullet in the good doctor's heart and threw him in the damned sinkhole. The man has the mind of a rabid dog."

    "He may still prove useful," said Chaco slowly.

    "Useful, how?"

    "If I know his mind, he'll swear vengeance on those responsible for his newly acquired handicap. It might be wise to unleash him on Dr. Kelsey and the diver called Pitt to prevent them from being used by international customs investigators as informants."

"We'd be skating on thin ice if we turned a crazy man like him loose. But I'll keep your suggestion in mind."

    Chaco went on. "What plans do the Solpemachaco have for me? I am finished here. Now that my countrymen will know I have betrayed their trust with regard to our historical treasures, I could spend the rest of my life in one of our filthy prisons."

    "A foregone conclusion." Sarason shrugged. "My sources also revealed that the local police have been ordered to pick you up. They should arrive within the hour."

    Chaco looked at Sarason for a long moment, then said slowly "I am a scholar and a scientist, not a hardened criminal. There is no telling how much I might reveal during lengthy interrogation, perhaps even torture."

    Sarason suppressed a smile at the veiled threat. "You are a valuable asset we cannot afford to lose. Your expertise and knowledge of ancient Andean cultures is second to none. Arrangements are being made for you to take over our collection facilities in Panama. There you will direct the identification, cataloguing, and restoration operations on all artifacts we either purchase from the local huagueros or acquire under the guise of academic archaeological projects throughout South America."

    Chaco suddenly looked wolfish. "I'm flattered. Of course I accept. Such an important position must pay well."

    "You will receive two percent of the price the artifacts bring at our auction houses in New York and Europe."

    Chaco was too far down the rungs of the organizational ladder to be privy to the inner secrets of the Solpemachaco, but he well knew the network, and its profits were vast. "I will need help getting out of the country."

    "Not to worry," said Sarason. "You'll accompany me." He nodded out a window at the ominous black aircraft sitting outside the motor home, the big threebladed rotors slowly beating the air at idle. "In that aircraft we can be in Bogota, Colombia, within four hours."

    Chaco couldn't believe his luck. One minute he was a step away from disgrace and prison for defrauding his government, the next he was on his way to becoming an extremely wealthy man. The memory of his sibling was rapidly fading, they were only half-brothers and had never been close anyway. While Sarason patiently waited, Chaco quickly gathered some personal items and stuffed them in a suitcase. Then the two men walked out to the aircraft together.

    Juan Chaco never lived to see Bogota, Colombia. Farmers tilling a field of sweet potatoes near an isolated village in Ecuador paused to look up in the sky at the strange droning sound of the tilt-rotor as it passed overhead 500 meters (1600 feet) above the ground. Suddenly, in what seemed a horror fantasy, they caught sight of the body of a man dropping away from the aircraft. The farmers could also clearly see that the unfortunate man was alive. He frantically kicked his legs and clawed madly at the air as if he could somehow slow his plunging descent.

    Chaco struck the ground in the middle of a small corral occupied by a scrawny cow, missing the startled animal by only 2 meters. The farmers came running from their field and stood around the crushed body that was embedded nearly half a meter into the soil. Simple countryfolk, they did not send a runner to the nearest police station over 60 kilometers (37 miles) to the west. Instead, they reverently lifted the broken remains of the mysterious man who had dropped from the sky and buried him in a small graveyard beside the ruins of an old church, unlamented and unknown, but embellished in myth for generations yet to come.

    The top of Shannon's head was wrapped turban style with a towel, her hair still wet after a hot blissful bath in the captain's cabin. She had allowed the Peruvian female students to go first before luxuriating in the steaming water while sipping wine and eating a chicken sandwich thoughtfully provided by Pitt from the ship's galley. Her skin glowed all over and smelled of lavender soap after washing the sweat and grime out of her pores and the jungle mud from under her nails. One of the shorter crewmen, who was close to her size, lent her a pair of coveralls. The only female crew member, a marine geologist, had used most of her wardrobe to reclothe the Peruvian girls. As soon as Shannon was dressed she promptly threw the swimsuit and the dirty blouse in a trash container. They held memories she'd just as soon forget.

    After drying and brushing out her hair, she sneaked a bit of Captain Stewart's aftershave lotion. Why is it, she wondered, men never use talcum powder after they shower? She was just tying her long hair in a braid when Pitt knocked on the door. They stood there for a moment staring at each other before breaking into laughter.

    "I hardly recognized you," she said, taking in a clean and shaven Pitt wearing a brightly flowered Hawaiian aloha shirt and light tan slacks. He was not what you'd call devilishly good-looking, she thought, but any flaws in his craggy face were more than offset by a masculine magnetism she found hard to resist. He was even more tanned than she was, and his black, wavy hair was a perfect match for the incredibly green eyes.

    "We don't exactly look like the same two people," he said with an engaging smile. "How about a tour of the ship before dinner?"

    "I'd like that." Then she gave him an appraising look. "I thought I was supposed to bunk down in your cabin. Now I find out the captain has generously offered me his."

    Pitt shrugged. "The luck of the draw, I guess."

    "You're a fraud, Dirk Pitt. You're not the lecher you make yourself out to be."

    "I've always believed intimacy should be drifted into gradually."

    She suddenly felt uneasy. It was as though his piercing eyes could read her mind. He seemed to sense there was someone else. She forced a smile and wrapped her arm around his. "Where shall we begin?"

    "You're speaking of the tour, of course."

    "What else?"

    The Deep Fathom was a state-of-the-art scientific work boat, and she looked it. Her official designation was Super-Seismic Vessel. She was primarily designed for deep ocean geophysical research, but she could also undertake a myriad of other subsea activities. Her giant stern and side cranes, with their huge winches, could be adapted to operate every conceivable underwater function, from mining excavation to deep water salvage and manned and unmanned submersible launch and recovery.

    The ship's hull was painted in NUMA's traditional turquoise with a white superstructure and azure blue crapes. From bow to stern she stretched the length of a football field, berthing up to thirty-five scientists and twenty crew. Although she didn't look it from the outside, her interior living quarters were as plush as most luxurious passenger liners. Admiral James Sandecker, with rare insight given to few bureaucrats, knew his people could perform more efficiently if treated accordingly, and the Deep Fathom reflected his conviction. Her dining room was fitted out like a fine restaurant and the galley was run by a first-rate chef.

    Pitt led Shannon up to the navigation bridge. "Our brain center," he pointed out, sweeping one hand around a vast room filled with digital arrays, computers, and video monitors mounted on a long console that ran the full width of the bridge beneath a massive expanse of windows. "Most everything on the ship is controlled from here, except the operation of deep water equipment. That takes place in compartments containing electronics designed for specialized deep sea projects."

    Shannon stared at the gleaming chrome, the colorful images on the monitors, the panoramic view of the sea around the bows. It all seemed as impressive and modern as a futuristic video parlor. "Where is the helm?" she asked.

    "The old-fashioned wheel went out with the Queen Mary," answered Pitt. He showed her the console for the ship's automated control, a panel with levers and a remote control unit that could be mounted on the bridge wings. "Navigation is now carried out by computers. The captain can even con the ship by voice command."

    "For someone who digs up old potsherds, I had no idea ships were so advanced."

    "After lagging as a stepchild for forty years, marine science and technology have finally been recognized by government and private business as the emerging industry of the future."

    "You never fully explained what you're doing in the waters off Peru."

    "We're probing the seas in search of new drugs," he answered.

    "Drugs, as in take two plankton and call me in the morning?"

    Pitt smiled and nodded. "It's entirely within the realm of possibility your doctor may someday actually prescribe such a remedy."

    "So the hunt for new drugs has gone underwater."

    "A necessity. We've already found and processed over ninety percent of all the land organisms that provide sources of medicine to treat diseases. Aspirin and quinine come from the bark of trees. Chemicals contained in everything from snake venom to secretion from frogs to lymph from pigs' glands are used in drug compounds. But marine creatures and the microorganisms that dwell in the depths have been an untapped source, and might well be the hope of curing every affliction, including the common cold, cancer, or AIDS."

    "But surely you can't simply go out and bring back a boatload of microbes for processing at a laboratory for distribution to your friendly pharmacy?"

    "Not as farfetched as you might think," he said. "Any one of a hundred organisms that live in a drop of water can be cultivated, harvested, and rendered into medicines. Jellyfish, an invertebrate animal called a bryozoan, certain sponges, and several corals are currently being developed into anticancer medicines, anti-inflammatory agents for arthritis pain, and drugs that suppress organ rejection after transplant surgery. The test results on a chemical isolated from kelp look especially encouraging in combating a drug-resistant strain of tuberculosis."

    "Just where in the ocean are you looking for these wonder drugs?" asked Shannon.

    "This expedition is concentrating on a ridge of chimneylike vents where hot magma from within the earth's mantle comes in contact with cold seawater and spews through a series of cracks before spreading across the bottom. You might call it a deep-ocean hot spring. Various minerals are deposited over a wide area-copper, zinc, iron, along with water heavy in hydrogen sulfide. Incredibly, vast colonies of giant clams, mussels, huge tube worms, and bacteria that utilize the sulfur compounds to synthesize sugars live and thrive in this dark and toxic environment. It is this remarkable species of sea life that we're collecting with submersibles for laboratory testing and clinical trials back in the States."

    "Are there many scientists working on these miracle cures?"

    Pitt shook his head. "Around the world, maybe fifty or sixty. Marine medical research is still in its infancy."

    "How long before we see the drugs on the market?"

    "The regulatory obstacles are staggering. Doctors won't be prescribing many of these medications for another ten years."

    Shannon walked over to an array of monitors that filled an entire panel of one bulkhead. "This looks impressive."

    "Our secondary mission is to map the seafloor wherever the ship sails."

    "What are the monitors showing?"

    "You're looking at the bottom of the sea in a myriad of shapes and images," Pitt explained. "Our long-range, low-resolution side-scan sonar system can record a swath in three-dimensional color up to fifty kilometers wide."

    Shannon stared at the incredible display of ravines and mountains thousands of meters below the ship. "I never thought I'd be able to observe the land beneath the sea this clearly. It's like staring out the window of an airliner over the Rocky Mountains."

    "With computer enhancement it becomes even sharper."

    "Romance of the seven seas," she waxed philosophically. "You're like the early explorers who charted new worlds."

    Pitt laughed. "High tech takes away any hint of the romance."

    They left the bridge, and he showed her through the ship's laboratory where a team of chemists and marine biologists were fussing over a dozen glass tanks teeming with a hundred different denizens from the deep, studying data from computer monitors, and examining microorganisms under microscopes.

    "After retrieval from the bottom," said Pitt, "this is where the first step in the quest for new drugs begins."

    "What is your part in all of this?" Shannon asked.

    "Al Giordino and I operate the robotic vehicles that probe the seafloor for promising organism sites. When we think we've located a prime location, we go down in a submersible to collect the specimens."

    She sighed. "Your field is far more exotic than mine."

    Pitt shook his head. "I disagree. Searching into the origins of our ancestors can be pretty exotic in its own right. If we feel no attraction for the past, why do millions of us pay homage to ancient Egypt, Rome, and Athens every year? Why do we wander over the battlefields of Gettysburg and Waterloo or stand on the cliffs and look down on the beaches of Normandy? Because we have to look back into history to see ourselves."

    Shannon stood silently. She had expected a certain coldness from a man whom she had watched kill without apparent remorse. She was surprised at the depth of his words, at his easy way of expressing ideas.

    He spoke of the sea, of shipwrecks, and of lost treasure. She described the great archaeological mysteries waiting to be solved. There was mutual delight in this exchange, yet there was still an indefinable gap between them. Neither felt strongly attracted to the other.

    They had strolled out on deck and were leaning over the railing, watching the white foam thrown from the Deep Fathom's bow slide past the hull and merge with the froth from the wake, when skipper Frank Stewart appeared.

    "It's official," he said in his soft Alabama drawl, "we've been ordered to transport the Peruvian young people and Dr. Kelsey to Lima's port city of Callao."

    "You were in communication with Admiral Sandecker?" inquired Pitt.

    Stewart shook his head. "His director of operations, Rudi Gunn."

    "After we set everyone on shore, I assume we sail back on-site and continue with the project?"

    "The crew and I do. You and Al have been ordered to return to the sacred well and retrieve Dr. Miller's body."

    Pitt looked at Stewart as if he were a psychiatrist contemplating a mental case. "Why us? Why not the Peruvian police?"

    Stewart shrugged. "When I protested that the two of you were vital to the specimen collection operation, Gunn said he was flying in your replacements from NUMA's research lab in Key West. That's all he would say."

    Pitt swung a hand toward the empty helicopter landing pad. "Did you inform Rudi that Al and I are not exactly popular with the local natives and that we're fresh out of aircraft?"

    "No to the former." Stewart grinned. "Yes to the latter. American embassy officials are making arrangements for you to charter a commercial helicopter in Lima."

    "This makes about as much sense as ordering a peanut butter sandwich in a French restaurant."

    "If you have a complaint, I suggest you take it up with Gunn personally when he meets us on the dock in Callao."

    Pitt's eyes narrowed. "Sandecker's right-hand man flies over sixty-five hundred kilometers from Washington to oversee a body recovery? What gives?"

    "More than meets the eye, obviously," said Stewart. He turned and looked at Shannon. "Gunn also relayed a message to you from a David Gaskill. He said you'd recall the name."

    She seemed to stare at the deck in thought for a moment. "Yes, I remember, he's an undercover agent with the U.S. Customs Service who specializes in the illicit smuggling of antiquities."

    Stewart continued, "Gaskill said to tell you he thinks he's traced the Golden Body Suit of Tiapollo to a private collector in Chicago."

    Shannon's heart fluttered and she gripped the handrail until her knuckles turned ivory.

    "Good news?" asked Pitt.

    She opened her mouth, but no sound came out. She looked stunned.

    Pitt put his arm around her waist to support her. "Are you all right?"

    "The Golden Body Suit of Tiapollo," she murmured reverently, "was lost to the world in a daring robbery at the Museo Nacional de Antropologia in Seville in 1922. There isn't an archaeologist alive who wouldn't sign away his or her pension to study it."

    "What exactly makes it so special?" asked Stewart.

    "It is considered the most prized artifact to ever come out of South America because of its historic significance," Shannon lectured, as if entranced. "The gold casing covered the mummy of a great Chachapoyan general known as Naymlap, from the toes to the top of the head. The Spanish conquerors discovered Naymlap's tomb in 1547 in a city called Tiapollo high in the mountains. The event was recorded in two early documents but today Tiapollo's precise location is unknown. I've only seen old black-and-white photos of the suit, but you could tell that the intricately hammered metalwork was breathtaking. The iconography, the traditional images, and the designs on the exterior were lavishly sophisticated and formed a pictorial record of a legendary event."

    "Picture writing, as in Egyptian hieroglyphics?" asked Pitt.

    "Very similar."

    "What we might call an illustrated comic strip," added Giordino as he stepped out on deck.

    Shannon laughed. "Only without the panels. The panels were never fully deciphered. The obscure references seem to indicate a long journey by boat to a place somewhere beyond the empire of the Aztecs."

    "For what purpose?" asked Stewart.

    "To hide a vast royal treasure that belonged to Huascar, an Inca king who was captured in battle and murdered by his brother Atahualpa, who was in turn executed by the Spanish conqueror Francisco Pizarro. Huascar possessed a sacred gold chain that was two hundred and fourteen meters long. One report given to the Spaniards by Incas claimed that two hundred men could scarcely lift it."

    "Roughly figuring that each man hoisted sixty percent of his weight," mused Giordino, "you're talking over nine thousand kilograms or twenty thousand pounds of gold. Multiply that by twelve troy ounces . . ."

    "And you get two hundred and forty thousand ounces," Pitt helped out. Giordino's calculating expression suddenly crumbled into blank astonishment. "Oh my God. On today's gold market that works out to well over a hundred million dollars."

    "That can't be right," scoffed Stewart.

    "Compute it for yourself," muttered Giordino, still stupefied.

    Stewart did, and his face went as blank as Giordino's. "Mother of heaven, he's right."

    Shannon nodded. "That's just the price of the gold. As an artifact it is priceless."

    "The Spanish never got their hands on it?" Pitt asked Shannon.

    "No, along with a vast hoard of other royal wealth, the chain disappeared. You've probably all heard the story of how Huascar's brother Atahualpa tried to buy his freedom from Pizarro and his conquistadors by offering to fill a room that measured seven meters in length by five meters wide with gold. Atahualpa stood on his tiptoes, reached up and drew a line around the room that was almost three meters from the floor, the height to which the gold would top out. Another smaller room nearby was to be filled with silver twice over."

    "Has to be a world's record for ransom," mused Stewart.

    According to the legend," Shannon continued, "Atahualpa seized massive numbers of golden objects from palaces, religious temples, and public buildings. But the supply was coming up short, so he went after his brother's treasures. Huascar's agents warned him of the situation, and he conspired to have his kingdom's treasures spirited away before Atahualpa and Pizarro could get their hands on them. Guarded by loyal Chachapoyan warriors, commanded by General Naymlap, untold tons of gold and silver objects, along with the chain, were secretly transported by a huge human train to the coast, where they were loaded on board a fleet of reed and balsa rafts that sailed toward an unknown destination far to the north."

    "Is there any factual basis to the story?" Pitt asked.

    "Between the years 1546 and 1568, a Jesuit historian and translator, Bishop Juan de Avila, recorded many mythical accounts of early Peruvian cultures. While attempting to convert the Chachapoyan people to Christianity, he was told four different stories about a great treasure belonging to the Inca kingdom that their ancestors helped carry across the sea to an island far beyond the land of the Aztecs, where it was buried. Supposedly it is guarded by a winged jaguar until the day the Incas return and retake their kingdom in Peru."

    "There must be a hundred coastal islands between here and California," said Stewart.

    Shannon followed Pitt's gaze down to the restless sea. "There is, or I should say was, another source of the legend."

    "All right," said Pitt, "let's hear it."

    "When the Bishop was questioning the Cloud People, as the Chachapoyans were called, one of the tales centered on a jade box containing a detailed chronicle of the voyage."

    "An animal skin painted with symbolic pictographs?"

    "No, a quipu," Shannon replied softly.

    Stewart tilted his head quizzically. "A what?"

    "Quipu, an Inca system for working out mathematical problems and for record keeping. Quite ingenious, really. It was a kind of ancient computer using colored strands of string or hemp with knots placed at different intervals. The various color-coded strands signified different things -blue for religion, red for the king, gray for places and cities, green for people, and so forth. A yellow thread could indicate gold while a white one referred to silver. The placement of knots signified numbers, such as the passage of time. In the hands of a quipu-mayoc, a secretary or clerk, the possibilities of creating everything from records of events to warehouse inventories were endless. Unfortunately, most all the quipus, one of the most detailed statistical records of a people's history ever kept, were destroyed during the Spanish conquest and the oppression that followed."

    Pitt said, "And this stringed instrument, if you'll forgive the pun, was used to give an account of the voyage, including time, distances, and location?"

    "That was the idea," Shannon agreed.

    "Any clues as to whatever became of the jade box?"

    "One story claims the Spaniards found the box with its quipu and not knowing its value, sent it to Spain. But during shipment aboard a treasure galleon bound for Panama, the box, along with a cargo of precious artifacts and a great treasure of gold and silver, was captured by the English sea hawk, Sir Francis Drake."

    Pitt turned and regarded her as he might a classic automobile he'd never seen before. "The Chachapoyan treasure map went to England?"

    Shannon gave a helpless shrug. "Drake never mentioned the jade box or its contents when he reached England after his epic voyage around the world. Since then, the map has become known as the Drake quipu, but it was never seen again."

    "A hell of a tale," Pitt muttered quietly. His eyes seemed to turn dreamlike as his mind visualized something beyond the horizon. "But the best part is yet to come."

    Shannon and Stewart both stared at him. Pitt's gaze turned skyward as a sea gull circled the ship and then winged toward land. There was a look of utter certainty in his eyes as he faced them again, a crooked smile curving his lips, the wavy strands of his ebony hair restless in the breeze.

    "Why do you say that?" Shannon asked hesitantly.

    "Because I'm going to find the jade box."

    "You're putting us on." Stewart laughed.

    "Not in the least." The distant expression on Pitt's craggy face had changed to staunch resolve.

    For a moment Shannon was stunned. The sudden change from his previous mocking skepticism was totally unexpected. "You sound like you're on the lunatic fringe."

    Pitt tilted his head back and laughed heartily. "That's the best part about being crazy. You see things nobody else can see."

    St. Julien Perlmutter was a classic gourmand and bon vivant. Excessively fond of fine food and drink, he reveled in sociable tastes, possessing an incredible file of recipes from the renowned chefs of the world and a cellar with more than 4000 bottles of vintage wine. A host with an admirable reputation for throwing gourmet dinners at elegant restaurants, he paid a heavy price. St. Julien Perlmutter weighed in at close to 181 kilograms (400 pounds). Scoffing at physical workouts and diet foods, his fondest wish was to enter the great beyond while savoring a 100-year-old brandy after a sumptuous meal.

    Besides eating, his other burning passion was ships and shipwrecks. He had accumulated what was acknowledged by archival experts as the world's most complete collection of literature and records on historic ships. Maritime museums around the world counted the days until overindulgence did him in, so they could pounce like vultures and absorb the collection into their own libraries.

    There was a reason Perlmutter always entertained in restaurants instead of at his spacious carriage house in Georgetown outside the nation's capital. A gigantic mass of books was stacked on the floor, on sagging shelves, and in every nook and cranny of his bedroom, the living and dining rooms, and even in the kitchen cabinets. They were piled head-high beside the commode in his bathroom and were scattered like chaff on the king-size waterbed. Archival experts would have required a full year to sort out and catalogue the thousands of books stuffed in the carriage house. But not Perlmutter. He knew precisely where any particular volume was stashed and could pick it out within seconds.

    He was dressed in his standard uniform of the day, purple pajamas under a red and gold paisley robe, standing in front of a mirror salvaged from a stateroom on the Lusitania, trimming a magnificent gray beard, when his private line gave off a ring like a ship's bell.

    "St. Julien Perlmutter here. State your business in a brief manner."

    "Hello, you old derelict."

    "Dirk!" he boomed, recognizing the voice, his blue eyes twinkling from a round crimson face. "Where's that recipe for apricot sautéed prawns you promised me?"

    "In an envelope on my desk. I forgot to mail it to you before I left the country. My apologies."

    "Where are you calling from?"

    "A ship off the coast of Peru."

    "I'm afraid to ask what you're doing down there."

    "A long story."

    "Aren't they all?"

    "I need a favor."

    Perlmutter sighed. "What ship is it this time?"